Record Keeping for the Gardener

By Chelsea McLean, The Gardens on Spring Creek horticulturist

It happens to all of us. You’re standing in the middle of your garden in mid-August and notice the rose along the fence has been decimated by Japanese beetles, but the one next to it is unscathed–when did that happen? You return home from nursery and can’t remember which varieties you purchased. You discover that the irrigation rings you placed around your trees when they were planted are now woefully small, but you can’t recall exactly when they were installed. Does this sound like you? 

It’s easy to look past the importance of administrative responsibilities when gardening; we’re often focused on the more physical, day-to-day tasks. But whether you are a professional horticulturist or a casual hobbyist, record-keeping is one of the most useful tools for becoming a better gardener. 

A quick internet search for garden journals shows the various ways to approach record keeping. Many journals are highly structured with prompts for weather, planting lists, maps, and insect and wildlife observations. Some are colorful binders filled with sleeves to store seed packets and nursery tags. Some gardeners swear by the old black-and-white composition notebooks, yet others prefer to manage information digitally.

Personally, I find that keeping multiple spreadsheets allows for more flexibility. My daily check-in tends toward a more free-form style of observation where I log ideas, weather patterns, tasks completed, notes for next year, and even my mood that day (I’ve noticed a clear correlation between mood and irrigation failures). Each day’s entry is completed in a new column next to last year’s entry for the same date. Seeing years of notes next to each other for the same date allows me to identify long-term trends and recalibrate approaches for the next growing season.

A separate tab within the same document lists detailed plant information, including sourcing, cultivars, planting date and location, size, bloom color and timeframe, and a space for general notes—all factors that can be filtered, sorted, and keyword searched. The ability to manipulate data is a great tactic to find information without reading through pages and pages of handwritten notes. 

The key to all of this is continuity. Your records are only as good as the time you put in, so get into the habit of touching base with your chosen method anytime you complete a garden task, purchase a plant, or stroll through with a cup of tea. When it comes to gardening, all information is valuable as long as you find a way to document it and give it purpose.